Itinerant Londoner

So today I decided that the weather was so miserable I might as well stay in and make productive use of the time to get a quote for my flight.

Now I knew it was going to be expensive, because I want to visit 5 continents and include Central & South America, but it was even more expensive than I thought - both agents quoted me around £2,300 including taxes.

I know it’ll all be worth it once I head off, but it still seems a fair bit. I think have some more shopping around to do.

Looks like I spoke too soon about Valencia. Our freebie place to stay hasn’t worked out, so Paul & I are looking for somewhere else to go this July.

So I was browsing away through the Easyjet & Ryanair sites looking for inspiration (safely outside the Eurozone of course, now that the pound is slipping ever closer to parity) when I was reminded of the fact they now fly to Marrakesh & Istanbul, which got me very excited.

I’ve never been to Morocco, or anywhere in Africa, and my only trip to Turkey so far was a week on a beach resort doing some sailing, so I’ve seen very little of the real Turkey.

The only problem is deciding which one to go for.

Loads of my friends have been to Morocco in the last few years and have all raved about, and seeing the stunning photos over at Gallo Moa has just confirmed that. Oh, and obviously, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to bump my countries visited list up by one.

Whereas Istanbul was where my sister went for honeymoon, which I’ve just been reading about in Rory MacLean’s brilliantly evocative Magic Bus, and which I’m fascinated about because of its incredible history.

I’m not complaining though, it’s a great dilemma to have, it gives me even more excuses to daydream when I should be working!

Overheard in the park today:

“Where did you go again?”

“South Africa - it was stunning”

“Really? You never think about it being beautiful, do you…you just think about people getting shot and stuff”

All this thinking about travel has me increasingly desperate for a trip abroad in the meantime. It’s all very well saving all my spare cash, but I figure it’s worth splurging a little just to keep me sane.

I’ve booked tickets to go to Glastonbury again (and this time it’d better be sunny or there’ll be trouble…) and figured it was the perfect opportunity to go away - the state I’ll be in after 4 days in a field in Somerset means heading off to the sun is a far more appealing proposition than having to stay awake in meetings back in the office.

My original plan was to head off somewhere in Eastern Europe where I won’t get fleeced by the Euro exchange rate, but it now turns out I have the offer of a place to stay for free in Valencia. So Valencia it is. Spain just about edges Germany as my favourite country in Europe (it’s the weather, I think), and Valencia is one of the places I’ve never got round to visiting yet.

and for some reason the thing I’m most excited about is trying Horchata. I’m sure it’ll end up being a disappointment.

Finally the sun has come out. It’s been warm all weekend and it’s due to carry on for the rest of the week too.

London really comes into its own in the sun. The view from the bus as I went over Waterloo bridge this morning was enough to almost distract me from the fact I was heading into work - the blue sky behind St. Paul’s, the sun reflecting off the river. Everyone’s even walking around smiling, which makes a change from the usual London scowl.

If it was like this all the time I might not even have the travel bug as much as I do…except we all know it won’t last. There’ll no doubt be torrential rain and freezing temperatures by next week, and life will return to normal.

Reading this post really resonated with me.

Before I went to Laos at Christmas I was worried it might be a lonely trip - I’d never been away for three weeks on my own before, and I’ve always been really shy when it comes to introducing myself to new people. When i got there I quickly realised I needed to just get over my fears and go out and talk to people - and guess what? It really wasn’t anywhere near as hard as I thought it would be…and by the end of the trip I ended up spending New Year’s Eve with a bigger group of people than I’d ever spent it with back home.

I’ve really noticed the effect on my confidence since I got back - both socially and at work.

An obvious part of the desire to travel is to see and experience new things, and my experience at Christmas has shown me I want to make sure lots of those new things are ones that lie outside my comfort zone.

To that end, I’ve just signed up for a beginners’ climbing course - I have a slight fear of heights, so figured forcing myself up cliffs will be a great way of confronting my fears!

13 years I’ve lived in Clapham, ever since my last year at university.

Which means for 13 years I’ve being using the Northern Line to get into town every day.

An hour a day in total, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year.

That’s 130 days of my life.

Fighting to get on every morning, having to stand there with people’s armpits in my face or elbows in my back.

Even if I wasn’t going anywhere exciting, the knowledge that I won’t have to deal with the tube for a year fills me with joy.

There are certain places in the world that I figured I’d never get round to visiting - mainly because they’re too remote and too difficult or expensive to get to. Easter Island is one of them.

I’ve just found out that I can probably include it on my round the world ticket, as LAN, the Chilean airline, flies there from Santiago.

Aside from the fact it’s one of the most isolated inhabited places in the world, getting to see the famous Moai in real life has got me incredibly excited. Plus of course there’s the obvious traveller oneupmanship that no-one I know has been there.

Also quite exciting is the fact that LAN then offers onward flights to Tahiti - another place that’s lodged firmly in the imagination as the archetypal paradise. Although I’m not sure I’ll be able to fly on to New Zealand or Australia from there, and doubling back all the way to Santiago doesn’t sound all that appealing. I really need to get round to speaking to a travel agent.

When I was 17 everything was clear in my mind - I’d go and study German & Dutch at university, and then go and live in Berlin when I graduated, or maybe Brussels at a push (to work for the European Commission, of course). All I needed to do was study hard for four years and then I’d pop out the other speaking like a native.

Of course it didn’t quite work out like that. The German department were more interested in getting us to translate impenetrable 19th century poetry rather than getting us doing anything remotely useful like talking to each other, a matter that wasn’t helped by my friend Hilary & I whiling away the lectures passing each other rude notes in code (using the numbers from the giant Periodic Table that was on the wall of the Chemistry lecture theatre where we had our German Lit classes) and paying very little attention. So I ended up giving up German after the first year.

Dutch didn’t work out much better - I lived in Utrecht for three months in my third year, but didn’t improve at all seeing as all the Dutch people just spoke to me in English. I ended up ditching that too and coming home to finish off my degree in Geography.

I’d already failed with French, put off by the fact that even when I knew what to say, my accent is so terrible people would normally fail to understand me at all (or that could just be the French being bloody-minded).

So I’m determined to make more of a success with Spanish. I had a few months of lessons a couple of years ago which went OK - beginners Spanish is a lot more straightforward than other languages I’ve learnt, once I’d got past the weirdness of not using personal pronouns with verbs. I’m confident I can do all the basic travel necessities, especially if my experience of Mexico is anything to go by - people made a real effort to speak slowly for me and compliment me on my Spanish, which is a big confidence-booster.

I’ll be starting again soon and hope to continue right up til I go, and then have more intensive lessons when I get to Central America. I really want to make more of a success of it this time - and I’m a bit more hopeful: I’m much more confident than I was when was younger, so I’m happier to give it a go. Plus I really don’t want to spend the whole year just talking to other travellers - I’d love to be able to spend more time chatting to locals to make the most of the year.

And if all else fails, I can always get drunk and argumentative: the two most fluent conversations I’ve had in German & Dutch have been in the past few years having arguments with taxi drivers who have been trying to fleece me by taking me the wrong direction and over-charging me. It’s remarkable how many words I could remember when there was money stake.